The Minnesota River joins the Mississippi beneath a limestone bluff. Atop
this point, U.S. troops under the command of Colonel Josiah Snelling built a
frontier outpost in the early 1820s.

Fort Snelling as it looked in the 1840s is shown in this painting by Henry Lewis. The island seen in the foreground carries the name of Lieutenant Zebulon Pike, who met there with the Dakota Indians in 1805 and bought the land for the fort.

Fort Snelling had undergone great changes by 1946, when its long career as an army post finally came to an end. Some walls and buildings had crumbled and been torn down; others had been altered to suit changing needs and fashions; the growing Twin Cities Metropolitan Area had encroached on it; and planes roared overhead as they landed and took off from the nearby airport. The fort's final destruction seemed close when the federal interstate highway program threatened it in 1956.

Map of the fort in relation to Mendota Bridge and
the state park.

Picturesque battlements that had been added to the Round Tower in
the 1890s can be seen in this photo of archaeologists at work near it in 1957.

A few voices were raised in protest, and in 1957, looking toward the hundredth
anniversary of Minnesota statehood, the state's Centennial Commission granted
money to the Minnesota Historical Society for an archaeological investigation.
The study was to determine if enough foundations of the original fort remained
to make restoration feasible. A busy season of digging demonstrated that
indeed the ground still held clear evidence of where buildings had stood and
how they had been constructed.

Outcry from preservationists persuaded the Minnesota Highway Department to
revise its plans and resulted in the tunnel that carries Highway 5 beneath the
fort instead of through it. Meanwhile pressure had mounted for the creation
of a state park to include the old fort and the unspoiled river valley below
it. That became a reality in 1961.

In 1964 Historical Society archaeologists investigated the site of Cantonment
New Hope, below the present Mendota Bridge, where troops assigned to build the
fort set up temporary quarters in 1819. At the same time, research in the
National Archives turned up several sets of plans for the fort, along with
hundreds of related documents.

Thirteen years of uninterrupted archaeological work began in 1965 with passage
of the state Historic Sites Act and the appropriation of $200,000 for the
Historical Society to start restoration of the old fort. The first step was
taken that summer by excavating the floor of the Round Tower, one of the few
original buildings that remained intact.

Historical Society archaeologists at work in the Round Tower, 1965. Layers of interior finish, including murals painted by WPA artists, had to be
removed in restoring the building to its appearance in the 1820s.

By 1978 the foundations of the walls and all the buildings within them had
been investigated, and restoration was nearly complete. In the two decades
that followed, sporadic archaeological work was done at sites outside the
walls, such as root cellars cut into the river bank, stables, and trash dumps,
but not until the late 1990s did investigation extend beyond the 1850s and
begin to ask questions about the fort's later years.

Map showing excavation areas.

Feature during excavation.

The story of this long-running archaeological exploration and how it has
added, not only to the accurate restoration and reconstruction of the old
fort, but also to knowledge of what life was like there is told in "History
Under the Floor Boards." This exhibit is located in one section of the former
officers' quarters.